a.m. eastern time. we are watching the futures. light trading. light trading but "squawk on the street" is here to get you up to 0 date on everything that's happening. we'll see you tomorrow. good morning. welcome to "squawk on the str t street. "i'm melissa lee live from nbc global headquarters here in new jersey. the new york stock exchange is closed for a second consecutive day due to hurricane sandy. the year 1888 was the last time the u.s. stock markets were shut for more than one day due to weather. the nyse and nasdaq are hoping to reopen tomorrow, wednesday. a key trading day because it's the last day of the month when traders prays their portfolios. meantime, new york city mayor is set to hold a news conference on sandy 45 minutes from now.

we will go to that conference once the mayor begins his remarks. we'll hear from a number of ceos about how sandy has impacted their businesses. the heads of hartford financial and landry is among the top executives who will be joining us over the last few hours. how equity index futures are trading. will cease trading in 15 minutes time. the dow and nasdaq pointing d n down. as for europe, the action dominated by deutsche bank and bp. we do see green arrows across the board with a 1% gain in germany. >> at least 16 deaths blamed on sandy as the storm continues to wreak havoc on the northeast with new york and new jersey dechaired major disasters. overnight more than 200 patients have been evacuated from two nyu langone hospitals after backup power failed. millions on the east coast awoke without power or mass transit. an estimated 7.8 million are believed to be without power and experts say it could be several days before it is restored.

mass transit at a stand still after an unprecedented 13-foot surge of water gushed into tums and subway systems. the massive storm caused the worst damage in 108-year history of the new york subway system according to the mta. tunnels and bridges remain closed in new york with the exception of the lincoln tunnel. heavy rains and flooding remains a threat. it was about what the storm was going to be. now that we essentially know it, it's going to be laying out the winners, so to speak, and the losers because it is asymmetric, right? now last year hurricane irene's initial projections were $7 billion. turned out to be $15 billion. there were a lot of ancillaries once the checks come out from the government and private insurers. stimulus to the gdp. not big enough to move the needle. this one we're getting initial projections is much bigger. the two cohorts in stocks most impacted the home depot-like places, let's call them that,

they were basically moved up a day ahead of the storm and then pulled off once the market turned out to be. >> we didn't see much of that on friday in terms of home depot or at lowe's which i thought was interesting and most of the retailers have closed their books on saturday, last saturday, so the impact of the storm won't actually be seen until the following quarter or the next month when they report retail sales. lowe's is the exception. they closed books on saturday. all the runup, the generators they've sold, the batteries, the flashlights, those things were almost sold out pretty much across the board. that should be interesting. >> i think people have to recognize that the market itself was not so hot last week. you had a chance to be able to buy home depot but people were worried about the report. the insurance companies, no initial impact though people try to portray there was an initial impact. about a month later they were lower and the houses were higher but the macro kicked in.

it was the beginning of a tremendous run in the housing stocks and that did not seem to be anything cumulative. >> it's been a quiet hurricane season so the insurers haven't seen a lot of impact. estimating insurance loss between $5 billion and $10 billion so there is a sweet spot when it comes to the insurers in terms of how much they can absorb but it needs to be big enough so they can push through premium and rate increases and that's where they're really to the benefit. >> there's better tone because deutsche bank reported very good numbers and ubs taking a lot of capacity. so there's a sense of financials -- >> big story of the morning is whether or not they can open the new york stock exchange tomorrow. wednesday he had to do it somehow. but given the flooding we've seen whether that's even possible. >> i think this is an overrated event.

they don't need to do this. got a hedge fund manager. you know what? there's an asterisk to everything. if there's human life involved that could be endangered by this, it's just stupid. so a hedge fund isn't priced right on the last day of the month? come on. i've heard it as gospel all morning. what about henning fund pricing? it's almost humorous. look, if you want to prove in some sort of macho way you can open, but please do not say it is because of the end of month. i know that there are mutual funds that close the books at the end of the october. hey, you have to close on the 1st. >> we'll catch you next month. is that your attitude? >> wow, the pricing of hedge funds must be preserved, it's almost too humorous. >> given the situation especially at some of these hospitals last night in new york, that sort of does put everything in perfespective. let's go to south jersey. kayla tausche on the wrath sandy left behind. good morning, kayla. >> reporter: good morning, carl. some good news here is the water

has receded. we just hit high tide about 30 minutes ago. driving through town, businesses and residents are pulling the boards off homes and businesses. the thought is at least the worst is over. cape may county where we are in new jersey, the southern most point in new jersey, the peninsula at the very end. cape may county one of the major disaster areas declared by president obama this morning. one of eight-counties across new jersey. cape may in addition to the likes of ocean county and atlantic county and ocean county, point pleasant, new jersey, got hit extremely hard as well as seaside heights, ocean city, all of those barrier islands and towns are completely flooded and access to the inland is hopefully going to be restored soon. as of right now, moving up to atlantic county, of course atlantic city, one of the hardest hit regions, of course, sa sandy making landfall just about five miles southwest of atlantic city last night. and even though the water has

receded and there's not that much flooding in town from what we've seen, a lot of the damage has been done to businesses there. this morning on "morning joe" new jersey governor chris christie made some very, very dire assessments to what he expects the damage will be in atlantic city and on the jersey shore. take a listen. >> i think what we'll find, unfortunately, when we get to the jersey shore today is total devastation. and that's the real concern. because not only is it people's homes and private property but also you have the tourism industry in new jersey which is one of our biggest industries. we're going to have to work hard to make sure we're ready for next summer at the jersey shore. >> reporter: now, of course, the casino industry the biggest industry in atlantic city. those 12 flagship casinos have been closed throughout the week. they cost about $50 million in lost revenue during irene and the expectation was that because the season was a little bit softer, maybe it wouldn't be as bad. now it's clear that even though

as christie called it the damage is incalculable right now it will be much steeper than irene. hopefully we'll get more from christie later. a few other buzz words, search and rescue teams went out at 5:30 trying to track down people who potentially were trapped. he said if people were evacuated until tomorrow, he could sign an executive order to move halloween. finally, he gave a ringing endorsement to his dealings with president obama in the last 24 hours over this crisis. and that's going to be an important thing with days to come until the election. people are talking about how sandy will affect the election, and that is one of the major things people are talking about this morning, guys. back to you. >> kayla tausche, thanks so much. talk about moving all these various calendar dates. there's also, i mean, as kayla mention, some talk whether or not the elections could possibly be moved. constitutionally it can be moved but whether or not that is going to happen is a whole other story. >> all i heard was executive

order to move -- >> halloween. >> words i never thought i would hear. >> think of all the children across the country rejoicing, and adults for that matter. and adults. >> we had a lot of businesses report a good quarter. european business news rather extraordinary. >> deutsche bank. >> when was the last time europe helped us? here we go. >> except we're not open. >> i know that our futures or whatever they were trading off of, looking at some of the data points, bp gave you a boost from dividends. that was terrific. 40 cents versus what was supposed to be 30 cents. the southeast, asia looks like they're getting their costs right and sales are up there. $40 million loss. $40 million gain. obviously liquidity very good at ford and i think the story here is to still come back. the stock has not rallied from europe, though. >> and north america, the continuing theme throughout earning season, here in the united states things seem to be

okay for the third straight quarter of more than $2 billion. more than $2 billion in sales. >> case-shiller also out this morning up half a percent in line on adjusted basis. we've been talking about that this morning. interesting to see how the storm will affect the housing market at large. >> and the apple story. >> the apple story. >> apple i find when it first happened i was looking at jim cramer on twitter, immediately you have to sell out. you have to sell out. whatever apple says, you have to sell apple. these two people who are out been promoted, you have to sell apple. the psychology of apple has gone from being this is an up stock to being i have to get out, it's important to recognize that has been a psychological shift on the stock. >> we'll have much more on all these stories later on in the show. meantime, damage assessments continuing all up and down the northeast seaboard. to eric fisher who is in

narragansett, rhode island. eric? >> reporter: cnbc says we're just coming -- forget cnbc. weather channel, what's up. >> that's live television for you. >> forget cnbc -- i often thought that was a neglect it tiff attitude. >> meantime, let's head over to lower manhattan by the new york stock exchange with the latest on the hurricane. scott? >> this is cnbc, right? >> yes. >> you're not allowed to say that. >> reporter: things are at least improving in terms of the weather conditions. we have had had had a couple of showers and the winds still blowing but it's high tide at the battery. a lot better situation. the waters in new york harbor have calmed down a little bit as high tide approaches.

that's one thankful little glim erm of something along with small glimmers of sun light that we're actually getting here. but it is a bad situation. the storm came ashore as high tide was hitting new york and a huge storm surge that swamped the new york city subway system, swamped the tunnels, i think we have video of the battery park underpass, which you would expect to flood in a situation like this, which essentially connects the west side highway and the fdr drive. we don't have that. that's flooded. anything that was below ground level was going to flood as the water came ashore. and we actually had to high tail it out of this location yesterday as that storm surge came up. it was a big deal. some 600,000 people in just the new york city metro area are without power. that's three times the record power outage that came last year during hurricane irene. all mass transit is shut down

and when you talked about trying to get the city back up on its feet and get people back it to work, no one can commute in right now from westchester county, from long island, from emergennew jersey. those commuter rail lines and subways and the lincoln tunnels to manhattan closed as they try to, again, struggle to get the city back on its feet. and continued flooding. coastal flooding, underground flooding. the worst of it is supposed to be gone by this afternoon and then we can assess damage. but there is no timetable yet on when those subways and commuter lines will come back. the buses will come back. but that's not enough. this is a region of millions of people that all need to get to where they want to go and that all plays into what we're interested in which is getting the financial markets back up and running. that is going to be a task. guys?

>> you never want to make it too local of a story. it is affecting so many millions of people but that picture of the entrance to the brooklyn battery tunnel is astounding the amount of water. 14-foot surge. >> rename it, the brooklyn barrier tunnel. it's a terrific road, by the way. >> scott, so much good work overnight. i look forward to working with you in a little while. scott cohn. we'll take you along sandy's path throughout the morning. the hartford will join us to explain the impact. a lot to talk about there. one more look at futures about 30 seconds left to trade. but modest rebound here. positive action on the dow and we'll see if we do, in fact, get some exchanges opening tomorrow.

grocery chain kroeger has a number of stores in virginia and wch wf where more than 100,000 people are reportedly without power on the cnbc news line is their chief financial 0 officer. michael, good morning to you. thanks for being with us. >> good morning. thanks for having me. >> we look at this through all sorts of different prisms. what are early takeaways for you? >> well, so far for us we've

been extremely fortunate. our supermarkets that we were most concerned about have come through this. only one lost power and now has power. the power outages have not been as bad as we first thought. we have 268 convenience stores under the turkey hill banner. 46 of those are without power. right now we have ten up on generators, backup generators. the other 36 continue to be without power and most of those are closer in parts of pennsylvania further north and east. >> how much of a complicating factor will the snow be? >> clearly the snow we're experiencing in west virginia complicates things a little bit. the advanced buying in that part of the world was about the same as we saw when richmond and down the beach area.

so getting deliveries will be tough, but we had trucks staged in advance. we typically get refrigerated trucks with the appropriate products for people to get by. we also stage a lot of ice near these kinds of events. we have a lot of experience with these down in the midwest from tornadoes and texas from other hurricanes. and one of the things always in high demand is ice as people don't have ice and they want to keep some product cold. so we feel we're in good shape from a supply standpoint. >> michael, jim cramer. >> how are you doing, jim? >> good. how are you? your stock is hot. regularly it's a lot of things going right. some of your competitors falling off the radar screen. but this is a kind of business right now that you're in where i know you'll have to throw away a lot of goods because you can't keep perishables. you are obviously responsible operators so what happens? you have insurance able to make up that difference or is this the type of thing kroeger is

cutting numbers because of sandy? >> well, as i said in the big supermarkets where most of those perishables are, we've been fortunate that only one store in have virginia lost power. our insurance program is we have a $5 million retention for product, the product side of our property program, so that's very minimal. $5 million is about a half a penny a share. so anything that we would have to absorb would be very minimal. >> we close our quarter actually ends this saturday. so any effect will be in the quarter. but at this point it appears to be very, very minimal. >> when customers come because this was one of the storms where we had a lot of advanced notice, there was tremendous stock on your part. they don't just come in and buy the water. this has to be a great week for kroger. >> well, sales in the eastern part of our geography were

certainly strong over the weekend. you do have a lull for a couple days for the event it self people aren't going out. they've obviously stocked up with food. and then you have a little bit of a buy after that when people have eaten what they have and need to buy again. we look at snowstorms and tornado events and hurricane events like this. typically over the course of that, it generally smooths out to be a pretty normal kind of 10 or 15 days once the event plays out. so i don't think there will be any huge one-time benefit primarily because, as i said, we have been a lot more fortunate than where you folks are in the devastation we're seeing up there which is gut wrenching. and it doesn't appear as though we'll have a lot of property damage or product loss. >> and, michael, in terms of lingering effects of hurricane sandy, we've been reading so much about the various railroads that are experiencing delays, the trucking lines. are there going to be any issues about distribution of products to your stores?

>> at this point it doesn't appear so. we sell supplies pretty much. we have warehouses located geographically near where we need them in virginia. and at this point our stock is pretty good. the thing you worry about at l all, if anything, if it goes on too long and, again, where we are it doesn't look like it will, is some of the perishable product because as jim alluded to, not in the stores nor in the warehouse. you keep a huge amount of that supply on hand. but at this point it doesn't appear as though we expect to have any big issues from it. we've been very, very fortunate just based on the geography we're located in. >> michael, appreciate your time today. thanks so much. michael schlotman joining us from kroger today. atlantic city, new jersey, is feeling sandy's wrath. casinos and hotels trying to revive their businesses on the boardwalk. we'll talk with the ceo of hotel nugget. re all about options trading. we create easy-to-use, powerful trading tools for all.

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nyse says it plans to test a contingency plan on wednesday. our bob pisani is here with details. everyone wants to know what you already know. >> reporter: so the important thing is their management is already in the building. the building is fine. the big thing, of course, is there's no power down there. the backup generators are up and working. make sure there's fuel in they will. they're working fine. they have great color up in front of the wall of the main entrance to the nyse overnight. that's work iing.

the data centers appear to be working fine. so there's a whole check list. they're meeting this morning, there's an emergency team and the nyse is meeting with various pieces of this to confirm what's going on. confirm the backup generators are functioning right. confirm if people are able to get in. they want to open the floor even with a skeletal team. they have lists of people they're bringing in tomorrow. the big issue is are the roads and tunnels going to remain open? they do not need the subway syst system. do not need the subway system open in order to get the system open. they need to look at whether there's any damage to any ancillary facilities. the main building is fine but telecom connections, data feeds going in, stuff they can't necessarily control, they have to meet with city officials to make sure that's up and running. and then if, for whatever reason, they cannot open the floor itself, they want to try to open the backup plan. theirs is a lot simpler. the main system, their computer people can jack into the system but, again, the testing is very critical because you have people accessing the system and when

you have problems that's where it occurs. arca is the electronic trading session. it has not been used live? >> not where the floor itself -- to my recollection, not -- >> it is not available. >> nyse does total volume abouted 4 billion shares. and of that arca is perhaps a third of that. in theory this is all scaleable. you can put a lot of data but it's in the details you have to be careful. >> is there a concern it won't be ready when it goes live without the floor of the stock exchange because it's never been done? >> that's why they're testing. when you have these problems, when people's outside systems come in and start interacting with that particular system. again, the plan right now is it to open with the floor of the new york stock exchange and even, by the way, if it has to do it in an abbreviated session. the decision how they're going to open is being made over several hours. they're meeting now.

nasdaq is test iing their own systems today and they also plan to open. >> there's been great -- there's going to come a moment people say this is my chance. some outside exchange is going to say, this is my time to hijack the business from your session. maybe a competitive guy does it. the reason i say that, for years, the exchange must be open. and one of the reasons you had to open it is someone was always going to take away this -- cincinnati, boston. when does that era of good feeling end? >> let me turn it around. the most interesting thing that's happened is it's shown that new york city is still the epicenter of equity trading in the united states, number one. and, number two, electronic trading, call it what you want, doesn't mean trading with no people. the real problem was how do you open the system when nobody is there? when morgan stanley's desk is not open, goldman's desk is not

open? the buy side people are not there. you can open -- theoretically you could open it but who is actually there? i think people were concerned about that. so i think overall market structure issues as well as the question whether or not we could completely decentralize the operation. >> we have a mayor who probably knows more about stock trading and bond trading. maybe in america. is he helpful? is he in saying, listen, i know the deal. is he directly involved? >> the nyse, to my knowledge, he is not in on the negotiations. the nyse is in touch with the mayor's office all the time, with city officials. it's the infrastructure people that they are concerned with. they want to make sure the system, the telecom system and all the data feeds are working. the meeting is going on right now. they're meeting with their emergency response team. they're going down the check can list, are literally going down the check list to make sure. i think there's not going to be a decision made on how it will open for several hours. they want to see what the roads are like.

that's the single most important thing right now, believe it or not. >> a couple hundred people. >> you have a couple hundred people. >> it's not that's the issue. >> it's not flooded. >> the floor is in great shape. >> where did that come from that the exchange was flooding? where did that story come from? >> i'll tell you what happened. apparently, my understanding was that occupy wall street twitter -- >> they tweeted and it was retweeted by a couple of news agency. >> so it's 9:30 right now, bob, on the spot. can we get a bell tomorrow morning? >> yes, we do. one way or another. they really do -- everyone i talked to said we really want to open even if it's electronic. >> everything has an asterisk so granted this is year end for fund out there but do we need to do it on wednesday? why not thursday? why can't we just say, you know what, because of extenuating circumstances, it's thursday? >> they could. remember, the end of the month is very important. a lot of funds report their net

asset values at the end of the month. a lot of firms have to report to their clients what the numbers are at the end of the month. a lot of firms, frankly, want to trade in and out of their position. is it going to be the end of the world if it doesn't happen? no. the pressure is on for them to do it. i felt it. they said we want to try to open. >> a phony number tomorrow or a real number thursday? don't forget, guys have a big position, they go in there and buy 50,000, mark is up a dollar, great quarter. >> i'm in favor of opening at some point -- you open the exchange. nyse, nasdaq, let's all open this thing up and not leave this thing dangling too far. >> thanks a lot, bob. >> new york city mayor mike bloomberg will give us the latest in the wake of hurricane sandy. we'll bring you those comments live as soon as his press conference begins and the impact on insurers with the ceo of the hartford coming up. [ male annou] this is steve.

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president obama has declared a major disaster for new york

city and new jersey after superstorm sandy left 16 dead along the east coast. millions on the east coast left in the dark this morning. an estimated 7.8 million are believed to be without power and experts say it could be several days before it's restored. a huge fire ripped through breezy points in queens destroying 50 homes in one of the most remote neighborhoods. new york city subways remain closed after water poured into the subway systems and tunnels around manhattan. an mta spokesperson called it the worst damage to the subway system in its 108-year history. the storm collapsed a construction crane in manhattan. robert frank is in new york on the scene with the latest. robert? >> reporter: there is some new information. i spoke to the fire chief who came out of the big meeting with the building developer, the engineer, the crane op rater and he said they're at the mercy of the weather. they cannot do anything including inspecting the crane until the winds up there die down to less than 35 miles an

hour. let's take a look and i'll tell you the latest plan for d dismantling this crane over midtown manhattan to the tallest residential building in the city. that top connector between the crane support and the building, cranes will have to walk across, climb up the stairs, get into the crane to start inspecting it. now once they're up there the plan is to try to tie that crane down, the support beam, and disma dismantle it. this, of course, as you can tell will be a very long process and could take days even if the weather improves and right now the winds up there are still gusting at more than 50 miles an hour. so there's no plan to even get up there today. this could be perhaps a week or more before they start bringing people back into the area so that it's safe. now of course this tower was a very high-profile building even before this incident. of course it is the tallest residential building in manhattan, plus one of the

richest billionaires paying $90 million for the penthouse, silas chou, bought a pent house. he of course took michael kors public a while back. and many of those owners are probably looking with a great deal of fear and trepidation as to what will happen, when will construction resume. additionally there will be questions as to whether the builder took the proper precautions for this storm. back to you guys. >> talk about lending an air of drama to midtown, robert. great walk last night and this morning. good work in new york city for us. stock markets are closed. bond trading closed as well. the cme group interest rate f futures and options including treasury, euro dollar and fed funds are open. rick santelli is watching that. good morning, rick. >> reporter: good morning, carl. and of course, you know, with new york closed, are that is the cash markets closed, the futures market offer an avenue but a very small avenue at best but, nonetheless, if we look at the big market, we look at the euro currency, it's up a bit.

and if we look at a two-day chart we can see the same dynamic. boons are very interesting because they have sold off a bit. their yields have risen. if i look at the futures market, which i can't show you adequately right now, for example, ten-year note futures, they have been rallying and they sold off. the current price for ten-year features is roughly the same as the price on friday. so not a lot of movement all and all but that doesn't mean if everything wasn't open, there wouldn't be more movement. it's very difficult to tell but many traders down here say their clients are at least happy as they watch various dynamics unfold in europe like a more solid equity market. back to you. >> we certainly saw a deutsch bank results help on that front, rick. in terms of the lighter than normal volume, what are you seeing? how does it compare to an average day when u.s. equity markets are fully opened? >> reporter: oh, it's just a very small contingency of

activity even though the staffs are here. it's more hand holding. even though much of our lives are electronic or computerized there is still something about hand holding relationships with human beings and there's a whole lot more of that going on, melissa lee, than there is actual trading. >> it's jim. >> reporter: hi, jim. >> a big auction last night. i remember last year you and i sat next to each other in that debate in michigan and were talking about 7% bund yield. there has to be something positive in europe beyond just the pumping up by the eu. >> reporter: oh, absolutely. as a matter of fact it's interesting you touched on the italian market because the italian market is much more unique than the greek or the spanish fixed income market because a lot of the citizens of italy participate in the purchasing of their paper very similar to japan. so there are some good things going on. and even the spanish auctions

that we have had, there has been a higher level of activity by those outside the system. and that's important because until you bring retail investors and outsiders in, these markets aren't real. they're getting a little bit more real. >> rick, we'll talk to you in a little while. thanks so much. rick santelli in chicago for us. really quickly, jim, i preface this by saying there's a lot more going on today than making money, but assuming we get an opening bell tomorrow, i don't know. do you have a list? what do you do? >> bed springs, bedding, 4.5% yield. dramatic raise. this says, once again, are the housing trades verified off my case-shiller works. >> you might get an accelerant. >> i want to pile on and go back to the group. so, so positive. >> what do you anticipate on the trade of apple? we talked about that a while.

the head of the iof, the software, the head of retail leaves. the biggest shake-up since steve jobs passed away. and now some people are saying cook has called this apple, his apple. >> the future is something that is an omg. i'm looking for some new product that basically says, oh, boy. this is not an incremental move. if any of the new guys can come up with it, the stock will go higher. people don't like the stock. >> johnny has been around, the design team. >> he looks like he is the successor. scott forstall and john is now holding a position that no other executive in apple history has held aside from steve jobs. what does that say? >> in the book, i was looking forward to a fundrai-raisefund- guy has stepped forward. this guy was the guy that jobs revered.

jobs went to this man and sold the company's rights to that. >> the european markets in the spotlight with trading just down for a second consecutive day here in the united states. also the challenge responding to crises related to hurricane sandy. we'll get a unique perspective from former fema director david paulson. looking for a better place to put your cash? here's one you may not have thought of -- fidelity. now you don't have to go to a bank to get the things you want from a bank, like no-fee atms, all over the world. free checkwriting and mobile deposits. now depositing a check is as easy as taking a picture. free online bill payments. a highly acclaimed credit card with 2% cash back into your fidelity account. open a fidelity cash management account today and discover another reason serious investors are choosing fidel i've got a nice long life ahead.

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a look at battery park in manhattan today. the storm surge there 14 feet. the previous record was just about 10 feet and it resulted in a lot of flooding in lower manhattan, subway tunnels. in fact, every tunnel that carries a subway between manhattan under the east river to brooklyn, to queens, has water in it. and we're talking corrosive, salt water, who knows how long it will take. >> carl, what's happening in terms of the reporting of this? the reporting in general seems, to me, body not shoddy. this is 8 million people without power. there has to be more than manhattan. we have point pleasant.

>> i know. i love there was a tweet yesterday from a comedian. here is washington, d.c., to give you another vantage point on the storm's destruction. some comedian yesterday tweeted, oh, you media talking about new york city as if tens of millions of people live there. >> that is well put. that is the sarcasm. >> there is probably some prejudices at work regarding coverage. >> we should note, too, there's an entire town in new jersey under water because levees have broken. moonachie, new jersey. so 1,000 people may be evacuated from there because of the flooding. this is a story that extends far and wide. >> it is true. i'm sending someone to my beach house. i'm not asking for that kind of coverage. the idea there's a downed tree here, no. paralysis. there's total paralysis. nobody is going anywhere. conceivably the only people watching anything. >> we'll get an update from con

ed this morning and anecdotally the numbers, although high, aren't continuing to rise. so maybe given all the press they had ahead of time, we talked to con ed yesterday, keep things from getting any worse. that's an interesting thing to watch today. to europe, markets closed for a second day. we turn our attention to trading in europe. louisa, good morning to you. >> reporter: in london we're seeing a pickup in trade in comparison to where we left off yesterday where we closed flat to lower across the equity markets. you can see the stoxx 600, we had a solid -- they got all the paper off the block. that's five and ten they've sold. looking at equity markets swapping higher. our main european index to give you an indication, a reversal of the closes with gains across the board in the region of 1%. a little bit more for some of

the more southern markets. the insurers, though, a lot of focus on the insurers obviously due to the storm. and again a reversal from what we saw yesterday where all the insurers were trading lower on the close and today we're seeing a bounce back in some of these companies. citi put out a note saying they were expecting a modest loss all things considered for the reinsurance sector. we still have to see what happens over the next couple of days especially compared to the more than $100 billion worth of the insured losses we saw in 2011. but this is what we're seeing here in europe now. guys, back to you. >> you talked about europe setting a tone that's sort of gone unanswered and unappreciated here state side because of the trading. >> deutsche bank, a terrific number. trading. deutsche bank at one point we have to remember where we were six months ago, a year ago. deutsche bank and dell one of the best in the world. to see that kind of number is very encouraging. i get the feeling when i look at that bp number that that

company, which had been so hobbled, was able to deliver earnings including a dividend boost. why these are important is because had we been open we'd be up. when we come back, billions dollars in damage due to hurricane sandy. the ceo of the hartford, one of the largest insurers in the northeast. how long their exposure could be. ♪

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about 8 million people are without power. the damage is still too early to tell but some put a prays tag between $5 billion and $10 million. the chairman and ceo of the hartford, liam, great to speak with you today. tell me what's going on. >> thank you, melissa. >> -- on the ground in terms of your assessors going out and assessing the damage? >> well, before i get to that, melissa, obviously i would like to join with you and cnbc extending our thoughts and prayers to all those individuals, families and businesses, that were impacted by this historic storm.

we do have our claims teammates in the field. they were pre-positioned for this. call volume so far has been normal for an event of this magnitude. i would expect it to pick up throughout the day as we now have daylight, a few hours of daylight and our customers get to understand and fully appreciate the magnitude of whatever damage they suffered. >> eqecat is putting out $5 billion to $10 billion in insure losses. what magnitude sounds right to you? >> well, i've seen those same estimates, melissa, from third party. there's three or four companies that do that. it does seem to be coalescing around that $5 billion to $10 billion mark which, if true, would make this storm among the top five in u.s. history. but let's emphasize that it's too early really to know. we and our counterparts in the industry will have a better sense over the next couple of

days as we interact with customers and their claims requests, we get out to see the damage on the ground. so while those are valuable estimates to this point in time, i think time will tell. >> liam, jim cramer. thank you for coming on. >> hi, jim. >> i think if you are trying to figure out right now who to call, there's a lot of this. flooding is federal government not necessarily you. can you give us the breakdown of people who should call you and people who say that's not my policy. people will be confused between property casual damage and flood damage. >> well, jim, my basic advice would be this is why our company and others in the property and casualty business exist. it's to protect what is most valuable to individuals and to business. so if you have damage of any sort, i would say call us. 800-243-5 800-243-5860. and let's sort through those

issues together. right now my primary focus is being there for our customers. we will have to sort through issues like that. there's no question the days and weeks ahead. of but if you have any damage at all, call us. and we'll work with you. >> what's your policy? so i go down in my basement and i already see 24 hours later there's mold. i want very much to get my contractor to come in. my contractor says, listen, unless your insurance is paying it up front or right now, i'm not going to do that job. where do you come out in terms of paying before versus after? >> jim, obviously that's a policy by policy situation. again, i would say right now if one of our insured has a difficulty of any type, call us. we'll work with you to sort through the issues. this is what we're in business for. the hartford has been in business 202 years doing. if there's any doubt, call us. >> liam, meteorologists are rewriting textbooks. you have irene 14 months ago,

now this. do your models tell you that this is going to be a more likely scenario over the next, i don't know, 20 or 30 years? >> well, carl, we do model scenarios like this, believe it or not. maybe not exactly this scenario but ones of this kind of severity. and for us i would say it's a manageable event financially. i don't think there's any question that things are different now. at least they have been over the last couple of years. you might expect a company like ours has skilled analytical professionals who do this work in conjunction with industry groups and the weather patterns have been quite different. the question really is, is this a permanent change, or is this just a cycle we're going through which we've had many weather cycles throughout history, as you know. i don't think the answer to that is clear yet. >> right. and, liam, i have to ask you, the impacts on the industry as well as the consumer here, when

you hear about these sorts of hurricanes and you hear about the estimated insured losses, which, as you point out, could be up to $10 billion at this point, if that estimate is dead on, should customers anticipate insurance rate hikes next year? >> melissa, again, my focus now is on taking care of customers. i think as the facts of this situation come to life, there's going to be suffering and damage by insurers of all companies. we will do everything in our power to take care of customers. the answer should be left for once we get through this, take care of our customers and then look at issues like that. >> liam, at one point in my old hedge fund business i -- a hard look at buying bonds because i didn't think there would be that many catastrophes. are you involved with the catastrophe bond market? dowel suspect there's some who

have enough risk in that market for insurance? >> i can comment only on our company. we've used them selectively and we obviously do use reinsurance appropriately. that's one of many reasons -- >> all right, liam -- liam -- >> this will be a manageable event. >> we apologize. we want to go to bloomberg issuing impacts of sandy on the city. [ speaking in foreign language ] >> all right. so we thought we were going to the mayor. our thanks to liam mcgee, the chairman and ceo of the hartford who gave us his insight. we'll go to the mayor when he does speak in english preferably. >> he tends to provide some comments briefly in spanish for new york's large spanish speaking population. >> exactly. >> carl, your question was so right. i mean, come on. once in 100 years.

i should be paying -- i understand they want to raise my rates. their models, many of them are wrong. >> his point is a good one, we don't know if it's here to stay. meantime, damage assessments continue this morning all up and down the northeast seaboard. to the weather channel's reporter, eric fisher, in narragansett, rhode island. eric, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, carl. hello, everybody. a big cleanup under way here in rhode island. no question if you were watching yesterday, storm surge was the big thing we were watching which was potentially the ocean flowing from where it usually is into places it is not, the streets and property along the coast. still a little bit of that debris left over. i will say the crews have been excellent out here this morning. you have all the heavy equipment. this was littered with all the rocks that line the coast a couple hours ago. they've moved a lot of that out of the way. that building behind me is a local landmark. they call it the coast guard house restaurant. it survived many a storm.

it was destroyed during hurricane bob. it is essentially destroyed now. the waves came in, filled it with rocks and water and they're going to have to rebuild that particular landmark. when we talked to the owner, they said they will rebuild. down the street we have a beach which is completely still under water. we're under another high tide cycle. had that beach pretty much wiped out in terms of dune. the parking lot asphalt ripped up by the water. an incredible force there. the surge ended up through the park where all the people are coming out to look at the damage. across the street, where you see the hotel there, the water was splashing up against the building. we've got the cleanup under way. a lot of people without power here, carl. several days before some of those folks get their electricity back. we're still here two decades. that's something. >> a lot to watch today where you are. eric fisher from the weather channel up in rhode island. final thoughts? >> i'm going to spend a lot of time on this issue whether it's good or bad. it's not human life.

it's just horrible. but there are a lot of people, a lot of areas of this country that will get rebuilt and we listen to hartford and i don't know if it's possible. obviously horrible. a few months from now maybe not so bad in terms of economics. >> again, so all new show tonight at 6:00. that's the important thing. jim, thanks. >> i think we're going to take a break. a lot mover "squawk on the street" continues in a moment.

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welcome back to "squawk on the street. "hurricane sandy has left millions without power caused by the widespread flooding that hit much of the northeast. 7.8 million people are in the dark and the power people say it could be days before that returns. the president has issued a disaster declaration for the state of new york and new jersey as the storm has already taken the lives of at least 16 people along the east coast. the mta says floodwaters surged into many of the tunnels and a number of train systems. no timetable yet for restoring bus and subway services. melissa? thanks, carl. the new york stock exchange, the nasdaq closed for a second con second tiff day. the year 1888 was the last time

the u.s. stock markets were shut for more than one day because of weather. the nyse and nasdaq are hoping to reopen on wednesday, tomorrow. a key trading day because it is the last day of the month and the year when they price portfolios. new york city mayor michael bloomberg set to hold a press conference on sandy in just a moment's time. we'll go live to the mayor once his remarks begin. we should note new jersey governor, chris christie, set to begin speaking at around the same time. we'll bring you those updates as we have them. >> the storm making landfall, knocking down trees, and leaving millions without power. we're covering the storm and its aftermath from nearly every angle here on "squawk on the street." we'll take you live to lower manhattan. high tide is only now just a few hours away again. plus 7 million people without power along the atlantic coast. we'll give you the latest on those widespread outages and tell you how long it might be for them to wait in the dark. plus, the nation's major

airlines and thousands of travelers having to wait out the storm. we'll have an update on the situation in the skies. and with atlantic city nearly under water and hoboken, new jersey, in a state of near paralysis, how is jersey's largest city faring? new york city mayor cory booker will join us live for his take. >> it is light outside thankfully and new yorkers are assessing the damage brought by sandy. in lower manhattan floodwaters near 14 feet. the power is still out and transportation total. battery park one of the heaviest hit areas is where we find scott cohn. scott? >> reporter: and to give you some perfespective, melissa, on what that 14 feet means, and that's what it was right here, i would be standing probably about neck deep in water if the surge were where it was last night and indeed we had to race out of here to get away from it as it was coming up around 7:00, 8:00 yesterday evening as the storm was coming ashore and as tides

were reaching their height and the surge was reaching its height. so that gives you a sense of that. when you get that kind of water into the city, you get this disaster that we face with flooding of the key underground infrastructure and a lot of other damage. we can show you the dramatic explosion of a con ed transformer on the east side of manhattan. with that, that was one of the reasons they were doing preemptive power outages for much of the city below midtown manhattan down to battery where i am, and much of that is still without power and may still be for at least several days. also in the outer burroughs in outer queens, in the breezy point section of rockaway, some 50 homes destroyed by a fire. if you've been through one of these storms, hurricanes and flood, there are fires and firefighters simply can not get to and that seems to have been

the case there. in addition to the human cost of all of this, the disruption of so many lives, this is easily going to be a multibillion-dollar disaster, potentially just in the new york city area alone. let alone all up and down the eastern seaboard where sandy made her wrath felt yesterday. the tail end of the storm taking place today. >> scott cohn in lower manhattan, thank you for that update. for the second day in a row amtrak is canceling all services in the northeast as the railroad passenger service between boston and raleigh, north carolina, between the east coast and chicago, new orleans and florida. amtrak's spokesman clifford cole joins us now on the news line. clifford, thank you for joining us. give us an update as to where the trains stand. >> right now they're still on hold. we suspended service along the northeast corridor. >> clifford, forgive me for being so rude. we want to go quickly to new jersey governor chris christie who has just begun to speak.

we in the government will be here to work with you to have new jersey completely recover. i've spoken with president obama several times. the last time was at midnight last night. he assured me that we would have an expedited process with fema, whatever assistance we needed. he moved the extradited process this morning by declaring new jersey a major disaster area. the counties receiving an immediate declaration for individual and public assistance include atlantic, cape may, hudson, essex, middlesex, monmouth, ocean, and union. please know this list is not final. other counties most certainly will be added as we make a damage assessment. the biggest issues we're facing right now, most impacted counties are search and rescue and restoration of power. we want to make sure we're

getting to those who chose not to leave evacuated areas or got caught in unexpected floodwaters. our priority right now is to ensure the safety and security of every new jerseyan. our state police and national guard helicopters are in the air as we speak engaging in coastline rescue efforts. our swift water team is positioned in atlantic city. it has begun rescue and recovery for those who remain in atlantic city. units from central and south to union beach, middletown, belmar are beginning search and rescue operations. we saw significant tidal flooding in several areas. everywhere from jersey city to nurg bay area, sayreville, moonachie, and little ferry. in moonachie and little ferry we've tis patched state and federally supported teams to provide shelter to those in

need. 18 members of our speed deployment are heading there in addition to the swift water rescue team, ten high wheel vehicles and floats. we've provided temporary shelter in teterboro airport the for those between moonachie and little ferry. we're delivering dry clothes and blankets and we're working to transition them to different shelter. we provided support to the new jersey city department, the newark fire department and the essex sheriff's office in the face of power outages in both jersey city and newark from high tidal surge. four high-wheeled national guard vehicles were sent to jersey city to assist with evacuations at the request of jersey city chief of police tom coney. the national guard has repositioned equipment to strategical locations across new jersey, more than 450 high-water

vehicles including humvees and heavy trucks available to assist civil authorities. they're providing helicopters and downward capabilities to conduct reconnaissance of shorelines, the areas post landfall damage assessment. currently over 5,500 residents in state and local shelters as of our latest count. we are working to set up shelters for new needs, two at rutgers, one at monmouth and one at the arena in morris township, new jersey. we are in the process of opening a sixth shelter at the athletic center that could support nearly 2,000 people. >> you've been listening to governor chris christie of new jersey commenting on the efforts in new jersey to recover from hurricane sandy. mentioned restoration of power and search and response are the primary objectives at this point in time. he also addressed the town we

had mentioned earlier, moonachie, under water between moonachie and little ferry to find shelter at teterboro airport for now but, of course, this is ongoing. the news conference continues. we'll bring you any sort of developments as they warrant. we do want to return to clifford cole, amtrak spokesperson. clifford, we apologize for the interruption. >> that's fine. totally understand. >> you were giving us an update as to the status of train service and the conditions of the track to this point. >> right. amtrak has put a halt on all northeast service as of monday morning because of the approaching storm. we still have no northeast corridor service as a result of the storm that came through yesterday and continues to affect the region. now we are beginning the painstaking task of assessing any damage to the infrastructure. amtrak owns much of the infrastructure in newark, new jersey, although we could like to point out some other folks actually own some of the other track along the northeast

corridor that we have to work with and are working with to coordinate reassumption of service. at this point we still have a suspense of the service on the northeast corridor and can't tell folks when we'll be able to get it back. >> is there any sense of whether or not there has been much damage to the tracks themselves or to trains that operate along this corridor? >> as far as the equipment goes, what's put into the yards sunday, so we department have any equipment out there in harm's way. our equipment is okay. right now the engineering team is out there anywhere from new jersey and even into the mid-atlantic states and penn station area and north of there assessing the damage. the initial reports are some flooding. through signal and switch issues, the extent of the damage we won't know until later today but it's certainly something that will take a while to assess

and then we'll have to do that. >> so how soon do you think you can restore services? >> i'm sorry? >> how rapidly do you think you'll be able to restore services? >> that all depends on what the engineers actually go out and find. we're hoping to get some limited resumption of service as early as tomorrow. again, that's not official. depending on what we find and, again, the storm is just now leaving the area in the new york/new jersey area but heading up the coast. it could take time to figure out exactly what damage we see and how quickly we resume service. the bottom line is we will not get any trains out there until we are 100% sure that it's safe to do so. >> clifford, really quick ly before we let you go, assuming the damage is not any more significant than you've you already suspect, is this something that would prompt amtrak in the weeks to come to,

i don't know, raise pricing marginally to make up for any costs? >> no, we've had these kinds of incidents before. we've had blizzards and storms, we had hurricane irene. the pricing of our tickets are not predicated on loss of service or any kind of prices or emergencies. i wouldn't think one would have anything to do with the other. >> clifford, thanks for your time, thanks for the update. clifford cole, a spokesperson for amtrak and i'm sure a lot of people out there really hoping that what clifford said comes true, the hope to have limited service restored by tomorrow. >> and i know a lot of airlines are getting back up and running. >> 12,000 flights. so we laid out the view from the insurers and amtrak. we'll check in with con ed and get some more clarity on that incredible transformer explosion in manhattan last night. back in a minute. [ male announcer ] this is steve. he loves risk.

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we call this our mission. green toys teaches children that if i have a milk jug and i stick it in the recycling bin it can turn into something new. chase allows us to buy capital equipment to be able to manufacture in the states to the scale we need to be a global company. with a little luck green toys could be the next great american brand. find what's next for your business at chase.com/mainstreet more than 7 million people are without power on the east coast following superstorm sandy. try say that go five times. among them are thousands of con ed customers. allen drewrey, the spokesperson for con ed, his company serves

new york city. thanks for coming to the phone. >> thanks for having me. >> a lot of us are seeing the picture of this in manhattan. and obviously they think the worst when they see it. how common is this and what exactly does it mean to the utility at large? >> well, it's not very common. what happened was around 8:30 last night we had an explosion at a substation in the area of east 13th street and the fdr drive, the east side of manhattan. we're not shaur what caused it. we're investigating. it could have been flooding because we did have a lot of flooding at that hour from the incredible storm surge or it could have been flying debris. fortunately no one was injured. it did cause a large scale power outage, however. >> a conflict of interest between wanting to keep everything running for people weathering the storm and actually the desire to shut things down so that if they

flood there's not mechanical damage? >> well, it's a balance. you never want to see customers out of service, but we did shut down service in some areas early last evening. >> sir, was that shut down before it exploded or was it still running? in other words could you have prevented the damage by shutting it down earlier? >> that will be part of the investigation. >> allan, how quickly can that transformer be fixed? i'm sure all of the new yorkers living below 39th street are wondering that very question as they sit in the dark. >> it sounds like what you're asking is the estimated time of restoration we will have customers back in service. we don't have a firm estimated time of restoration for all our customers yet. but we think that full restoration will take upwards of a week. the damage is incredible to keep in perspective how severe the damage is, our previous record from a storm was 203,000. that was from hurricane irene

last summer. summer of 2011. we've not only doubled that and tripled it, we have more than tripled it. >> so you're talking upwards of a week. you're referring to lower manhattan specifically or are you including west chester in there, too? >> i'm referring to all our customers. a full restoration of all 750,000 customers. and i could also point out the number of customers out of service has been growing this morning and will probably continue to grow even though the storm is weakening. there's still heavy winds out there and trees that are compromised may topple and they'll topple onto our lines. that outage number is likely to continue growing. >> you think it's topped over a million or not? >> impossible to say. i don't think anybody would have predicted 750,000. >> extremely unusual in a major city, a world city, to have this number of people without your power albeit with a storm that was once in a century event. moving forward, do you think there needs to be more capital

investment to keep the infrastructure safe if global change, climate change means this event may become more common? >> well, we invest a lot of money in our system to keep it safe and reliable and, in fact, we are the most reliable utility in the united states. but this storm went beyond what anyone expected. to keep that in perspective, the tidal surge from hurricane irene last summer was 9.5 feet down at the battery. this was 14. so that gives you some perspective as to how severe this storm was. >> allan, there are a lot of businesses, financial firms that operate below 39th street. specifically for that area, how long should it take to restore power there, and does it all hinge on fixing that transformer? we've been showing the very visual footage of that explosion last night. >> no, it does not all hinge on the substation at east 13th street. there's a lot of flooding of

underground electrical equipment and restoring electrical service means cleaning out all the components of the seawater, drying it, and then testing to make it safe to restore power. so, no, it's not all centered on that substation. >> allan, before we let you go, anybody who has ever had a basement flood knows how difficult it is to get water out. is the process of getting water out of a transformer that much different? >> well, i think the process of getting water out of our equipment is much more complex than your average basement pump. but we will get through this. we're all in this together and will fight through it together. >> we're all counting on you first, allan. thanks so much for coming to the phone. >> thank you. drury with con ed. >> many customers uncertain when exactly they'll reopen for business. on the cnbc news line, a restauranteur and ceo of union square hospitality group. danny, great to have you on the show once again.

>> well, i love coming on your show, and this is not my favorite topic. >> it's not our favorite topic either, danny. talking about input costs and stocks here. in terms of your restaurants, how many are able to reopen? what sort of damage, if any, have you sustained? >> well, in terms of the restaurants we have in manhattan, we're all really just are trying to get a handle on things. first of all, we're hampered because most of our restaurants are downtown so we have no electricity. so as of 9:30 or so last night all of our -- all of the food that we had was put in peril. so it's going to be a while before we can get open downtown. we're fortunate that two of our restaurants both on the upper east side and on the upper west side did not lose power and so now it's really a matter of communicating with staff members to see if they can safely get to

the restaurant. what we'd love to do if our staff members are safe, we've got the food. we've got the power. we'd love to serve the neighborhood so the upper east side and the upper west side today. >> danny, we were just hearing from con ed how many parts of manhattan and the state generally may not have power for another week. for those that have businesses in an area without power, that is phenomenal, isn't it, in terms of employment, in terms of profitability, in terms of your figures for the quarter. if you miss an entire week. >> well, what you think about more than anything are your staff members. >> oh, sure. that goes without saying. >> just in new york alone we have 2,000 people who are relying on a paycheck, and we have elected on sunday night as well as yesterday day, even before the storm seriously hit, as soon as the mta closed, we elected to close the restaurants

so we wouldn't put our staff members in peril. as long as it's an election, you are not covered -- my understanding is you are not covered by loss of business insurance. as soon as it becomes an inability to turn on your power, that's when your loss of business insurance kicks in. so we're a lot less concerned about the loss of profitability than we are keeping our staff members afloat financially and, frankly, serving our many, many members of the community. it's very hard to watch friends walk i walking by shuttered restaurants, they're hungry. downtown and manhattan, the buildings need elected tries itty to pump water upstairs. there's no electricity so you can't get water, you can't turn on your stove to cook. you don't have food to cook. so, listen, as of right now, we're counting our blessings because we have all kinds of restaurant colleague friends who

suffered a lot worse than this so far anyway during katrina, and we keep that first and foremost in our minds. >> danny, we always think of you as a new york city guy but you have operations in philly and boston. has the damage there been much different than right along the new jersey/new york coastline? >> well, so far we have none in boston, just to be clear, but we do have two in miami and this was a rare hurricane storm that seemed to avoid miami. so those guys are good. washington, d.c., we're going to check in with them. as i said, i've been hampered myself just because we have no internet and i was able to find a land line to call in to you guys, but we realize we're in a day and age where cell phones -- we have no cell certificaservicn for some reason either. so we're trying to learn. we think that washington is okay. we think that philadelphia is okay. and then up in connecticut we're

trying to find out if our west port and new haven shake shacks have electricity. sometimes that coastline gets hit hardest in terms of electricity. as soon as i hang up the phone with you, now that i found a land line, i will try to assess what's going on. we know all of our restaurants downto downtown, they're out. >> danny, thanks so much. good luck to you today and in the days ahead. danny meyer joining us on the phone. >> thank you very much. new jersey waking up to major damage from the wrath of sandy. how bad was it in jersey's largest city? cory booker, the mayor of newark, new jersey, will join us. system and the world's only tridion safety cell which can withstand over three and a half tons. small in size. big on safety. boring. boring.

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new york city awakened to a flooding, shuttered financial markets. at least 16 deaths from the storm after 90-mile-an-hour wind and rain pounded the northeast. the president has declared new york and new jersey a state of emergency. sandy has left more than 7.8 million people without power as high winds knocked down trees and utility lines. it could be a full week before power is restored.

new york was the hardest hit facing the worst damage in its 108-year history. the three major airports also remains closed. >> and snow in west virginia. gentleman knell is in snowshoe, west virginia, right now. gentleman knell? >> reporter: this storm was forecast, and yet very difficult to deal with for people here in west virginia up to two feet of snow falling as a direct effect of hurricane sandy and that is closing much of west virginia down. national guard troops are helping people get through the emergency. part of the issue here as in many states because of the hurricane are power outages. most areas of the state have seen power outages. thousands of people remain without power. many without heat this morning. and that probably won't improve anytime soon. plows are out on the roads trying to keep at least the

major roads clear. but as you can see the snow continues and high winds are also an issue. combined with that heavy, wet snow, it's causing a lot of problems. power lines being down, trees being down, so this storm is continuing to get worse. we expect that we'll see it intensify as the day goes on and we do expect to see more problems come from this as we see this storm continue. >> all right, janell klein, thanks for the update from west virginia. the nation's oldest nuclear plant remains on alert because of floodwaters that could endanger a cooling system. the warning was issued on the oyster creek which is 60 miles east of philadelphia on the new jersey coast and scott joins us on the phone line. what is the issue here? >> the plant's intake structure reached the point that oyster

creek felt it was necessary to declare an alert. after that point they had an issue in their switch yard where they lost power from the grid but their backup power sources continue to operate the plant. >> the plant has been closed down. could it threaten the rods? >> at this point, no. the plant does have redundance safety systems available so even if the water levels continue to rise at the intake structure, there would be appropriate means to keep fuel cool to the point that there would not be any issues. >> but, again, you've issued a statement saying that there is no danger to public safety. there is none whatsoever, even if there needs to be a full shutdown? >> the plant is currently fully shut down the issue here is ensuring the spent fuel that

currently is stored in the plant's pool is kept appropriately cooled. and the system they have in place, even if for some reason they need to shut down the normal water circulating systems, they do have additional means to keep the fuel cool and keeping everyone safe. >> scott, thank you for your time. scott durnell joining us from the nrc. >> you are very welcome. more on sandy's potential impacts on the major refineries along the coast and what that may mean for what you are paying at the pump. special coverage hurricane sandy continues. d to be slow. or that printing in color had to cost a fortune. nobody said an all-in-one had to be bulky. or that you had to print from your desk. at least, nobody said it to us. introducing the business smart inkjet all-in-one series from brother. easy to use, it's the ultimate combination of speed, small size, and low-cost printing.

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welcome back to "squawk on the street." i'm mary thompson in baltimore. no damage sustained from sandy here, one of the six ports that remains closed. the port of baltimore says it will reopen pending the okay from the coast guard who runs that.

we want to update you on the refineries. news from philadelphia energy solutions, a big refinery in philadelphia, saying that it didn't sustain any damage and that it is going to start increasing its run rate. others that reduced its run rate to facilities, no word yet. i've reached out to them. others are getting restarted and increase their run rates. as we know right now two other facilities, one in bay way which is run by phillips and another by hess do remain closed in the wake of this. this i critical pipeline that comes up from greensboro, north carolina, to the eastern seaboard delivering fuel there. it was shut down last night because its customers could not take any delivery of fall. it did experience a power outage. generators are being september up there. they continue to assess the situation, but the pipeline does remain shut down. not so much because of sandy but some of their customers, i.e. the terminals, are not taking any delivery of fuel because of

the storm. back to you. >> thank you very much, mary. let's get an update now on the path of the storm. wnbc joins us live. over to you, lori. >> reporter: hi there. good morning. this is unprecedented flooding here in moonachie. this is one of five towns that's under about five feet of water. we'll show you how ex tensive the damage is here. take a look at this. we decided not to risk going through this water. that's why we're parked here but you can see some people are trying to make it through. at this point one car out there got stuck. all of this here because a natural berm that contains water in one of the creeks leads to the hackensack river. water surged here flooding streets in moonachie as well as the surrounding towns. right now thousands of residents are stranded. several towns are assisting in the rescue. water rescue boats, about 40 of them, and rescue crews here are

going door-to-door to bring people to higher ground. we just heard governor christie a few moments ago saying special equipment is being brought in here. some high wheeled vehicles to get people out. there will be temporary shelters including one at teterboro airport where they're giving residents dry clothes and blankets. these areas here were not evacuated because no one expected a storm of this magnitude and even the people who live here say they can't believe this. they lived here all their lives. they've never seen anything like this. and i can tell you just in the last few minutes some drivers have been coming up here getting out of their cars and asking us, you know, what's going on? they're frantic because they can't reach their family members. there's no power here. the phones are not working. and they're not able to and a half gate through the streets to reach those family members. but for now that is the latest from here. we'll send it right back to you. >> okay, thank you very much, from new jersey. still ahead on the program, the east coast is steadily assessing the damage overnight.

we're going to sit down with a former fema director to find out how that agency can help pick up the pieces in the wake of sandy's destruction. try running four.ning a restaurant is hard, fortunately we've got ink. it gives us 5x the rewards on our internet, phone charges and cable, plus at office supply stores. rewards we put right back into our business.

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let's talk about the oil refine e e y refiniry. responsible for about two-thirds of refinery capacity to either shut down completely or operating at reduced capacity. the issue here, andy, whether or not refineries have seen damage because that will make restarting much more difficult. what do we know so far? >> well, what we do know is the four refineries in the philadelphia area actually sustained very minor damage. they're all operating. they're restoring operations and really will be back to normal by the end of the week. in new york we just don't simply have the information regarding phillips 66 or the hess refinery in port reading. there has been some flooding of the local distribution terminals

there as well. >> so what is your anticipation in terms of how things should be trading? we have our bob right now down by about 2% or so and when there's a shutdown or refining capacity it's bullish for products and bearish for crude. now that we know there's limited damage for a couple of refineries, what does that mean for the actual trade? >> well, i think that rbob futures will be under pressure. as you mentioned down about 5 cents a gallon. i think they could go down another 5 cents a gallon because even though we've lost some supply, i'm and tis patie anti loss in this event and that will be good for the consumer. >> andy, we talked about this ahead of the storm. everybody is worried about supply. the bigger issue is very few people will be driving around. you have some roads on which it's illegal to drive this morning. does that theory, is it extended

or magnified by the surprising extent of the storm? >> well, i think it is going to be extended on the demand side, in fact, because colonial pipeline is shut down, we're backing up all that product into the gulf coast and you're seeing those cash markets take a hit this morning because the refiners and traders need to place that product somewhere else throughout the system. >> given the limited instructions, an increase in the price of crude, the bpi? >> well, i thing the wti price is disconnected from what we're seeing in the northeast. crude oil inventories continue to rise. we have major turnaround coming up in the mid couldnntinent tha will add to the supply. so although wti prices around $85 or $86 a barrel today, i see them falling $82 to $83 as the world does seem to have enough crude oil out there for this

time of year. >> all right, andy, good to talk to you. thanks for your time. andy lipow, lipow associates. >> there aren't many silver lines. lower gas prices could be one of them. when we come back the east coast is waking up and assessing the damage. we'll sit down with the former fema director live. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] some day, your life will flash before your eyes. ♪ make it worth watching. ♪ the new 2013 lexus ls. an entirely new pursuit.

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the morning after the night before more much of the east coast still trying to assess the damage from the big storm, let's link in with brian schactman who joins us from montauk. we're live. >> reporter: thank you, simon. sorry about that. was that a few hours to assess the damage here on the south shore of long island, and i can tell you up and down the coastline there are huge chunks of wood, in many cases entire trees and in the areas where we are right now, they affectionately call this the barge or it was the barge. it was their summertime bar and grill. it's completely destroyed. they had a little bit of damage in the october snow storm last year. this, of course, is a total loss. they tell me insurance will help cover that. they hope fema will help them restore the beach. they have had at least eight foot of beach erosion. that is a story on the south side of long island which they consider to be averting the worst possible scenarios. on north side we sent a crew out today to get some images of the

cleanup and some of the aftermath. of course, debris is strewn everywhere and some roads are damaged, and then the big picture of long island just to update people, more than 80% of long island remains without power right now. that is a huge problem. we're also getting anecdotes of a lot of trucks trying to get to their destinations now that the expressway is open, and there's a lot of debris on the roads and the highways, and they chew it up and it's actually flown off and damaged some cars that are out there and caused accidents, so they continue to urge people if they don't have to go anywhere to please don't. as you can see, it's an absolutely gorgeous day. you look at the ocean. it's mighty, but it's beautiful. you come to the coastline, and it really looks like a mini disaster here, just wood and everything piled up on to the shore line. back to you. >> phenomenal pictures, brian. thank you very much. brian schactman there with the late forest montauk. >> the nation's major airlines and thousands of travelers have to wait out the storm. phil lebeau joins us now from atlanta with the latest on travel conditions.

phil? >> reporter: and melissa, still waiting to find out when the three new york-area airports, jfk, laguardia and newark, when they will be reopened. we've not received an update yet from the port authority, but in terms of flight cancellations here's an updated look in terms of the number of flights that have been cancelled. we're now looking at almost 16,000 related to hurricane sandy and then super storm sandy, whatever you want to call it now. that's the number of flight cancellations along the east coast. as far as those cancellations and what it's caused around the country, you're seeing boards where they say no flights, flights cancelled. in fact, that's the case here in atlanta. the cancellations into new york are actually expected to increase today. meanwhile, the d.c. and boston airports, they are open. they are operating, not full schedules yet, but they are slowly getting back to normal, and in terms of putting this event into some context, people are saying, boy, is this the worst since 9/11 in terms of a single event causing flight cancellations. not quite. it has passed up hurricane irene from last year, but we're way behind in terms of the number of

cancellations relative to snowmageddon last year. again, we expect more flight cancellations. the key right now, finding out when the port authority believes they with open the three new york-area airports. back to you. >> all right. phil what, we have, got to ask you to make a right turn and talk about the other part of your beat, auto earnings, ford revenues up. highlights from your perspective. >> reporter: north america, that is clearly what drove better than expected results in the third quarter. remember, when they raised guidance last week, they said they had a strong finish to the quarter in north america. that certainly was the case, both in terms of volume. more importantly pricing. when you look at the mar jibs in the third quarter, 12% for north america, strongest margins ever in north america in the history of ford, so that tells you something about they are getting the pricing there, and they also benefited in terms of hedging. they got a $400 million gain in hedging compared with last year when they had a slight loss.

a lot of people also asking about what's happening with europe. they had a slight increase in pricing in europe, but as we mentioned last week, when they restructured, that's going to be a mess, for at least the next year or two. >> and when you're talking about higher pricing and margins, specifically in north america, phil, are we talking about better sale of the pickup trucks? i'm asking you that because that's usually viewed as a proxy for the housing market. >> reporter: well, the pickup trucks is one part of that. another part is the overall pricing is stronger across the board for all of their vehicles, but mix is what you're alluding to, melissa, and that has improved in the third quarter. we've seen that throughout the summer that we started to see greater sales for pickup trucks, and that is certainly the case. that certainly helped ford, and in terms of whether or not that's a broader proxy for the housing market, most in the auto industry believe that we should see a gradual improvement in terms of pickup truck sales, going through the rest of this year into next year. >> phil lebeau joining us from atlanta. thank you, phil. >> a real busy day here on cnbc, a very different day, of course,

with the aftermath of the storm. what are you going to do? >> i have to say i miss the u.s. stock market. i miss the trading, and hopefully it resumes tomorrow. we do have a very big show tonight on "fast," the full trader panel, tony thompson, papa john on the disruptions, howard mills of deloitte insurance industry group to tell us about the impact of the insurance industry, whether or not the industry will be able to pass through and get through rate increases which would be good for shareholders, of course, bad for consumers. we do have the latest on the air travel disruptions that phil was talking about. in fact, the ceo of jetblue airlines in a fa"fast" exclusiv. good to see you, si we'll resume tomorrow. hopefully stocks will trade. meantime, carl and jim over to you for more storm coverage on "squawk on the street." >> thanks. latest on the aftermath of the storm. mandy drury has all the details on that in a moment. hey, mandy, you are ready. >> i'm here. let me give you some of the stats here that we know so far.

carl, at least 16 people are dead after sandy came barreling through the east coast and obviously everyone woke up this morning and saw that the damage was severe n.queens, for example, a six-alarm fire engulfed blocks of houses in breezy point. at least 200 fire fighters were on the scene this morning. they are battling the blaze, and more than 100 homes have been destroyed. also much of new york's subway system remains under way. the mta calls this flooding the worst damage in its 180-year history. they will do what they can to clear that up. no set time or date when we can use the subway again. downed power lines. trees as well. at least 7.8 million people without power and con-edison says, guys, it could be a week before it is restored. i'll give you lots more updates as we get them. back to you. >> mandy, thank you so much. the new york stock exchange, the nasdaq closed for a second consecutive day due to hurricane sandy. last time the u.s. stock markets were closed for more than one day due to weather was in 1888.

nyse and the nasdaq are hoping to reopen wednesday. it is a key trading day because it's the last day of the month when traders price their portfolios. jim cramer joins me here for the next hour on the main set, and it sounds like they are going to try to do this. the question is how long the session is, how many people they actually have on the floor physically. >> sounds like the physical plant was fine, unlike the rumors we heard last night. it looks like things are very much intact. reminds me of the earlier conversations about where around the country things are working. like the refineries are working. a lot of the big fears are working. nuclear plant even in new jersey working, but this idea of being able to staff is very difficult. i mean, look, i'm just -- i'm just like everybody else. i'm trying to figure out can i get through the tunnel? how about the subway? will there be a car? all of these things though are in the category of inconvenience. no longer in the category of technologically impossible. >> yesterday you called sandy a gdp event in a good way, adding being acreative to the quarter of gdp. does that mean it's a good day

tomorrow if we get the open as expected in. >> historically people have said no. initially tomorrow it's like, well, wait a second. this is a disruption. numbers have to come down. interviewed the kroger ceo earlier, a really smart guy. he was saying, hey, you know, what we're okay meaning you don't have to take down numbers, but then you listen to danny meyer of the new republic, he'd have to take down numbers, but then later on when the checks start coming, when the federal government starts paying up, we're going to hear from former fema straighter, and then you see this, wow, immediate infusion, check comes, home depot, check comes, warehouser lumber, check comes, electricians, and those are some big checks, and it does matter. >> ah, here's some corporate news even as we speak. ibm authorizing a $5 billion stock buyback. >> my charitable stock owns it and that stock ever since they reported has been in a permanent

downtrend so let's see what happens. >> we've seen a number of these on a large scale. nike a couple weeks ago. >> right. >> people wondered if that phenomenon comes to an end, and if so, what that does to share prices overall. >> talking to people at ford this morning, and ford does a lot of cash, but you're not going to see them in their buying back. one of the reasons why is the new thing you're hearing, what happens if we slip back? what about fiscal cliff? we talk a lot about fiscal cliff, but when you're a big multi-national company, you're looking for the united states to be the savior because europe is bad as is the case with ford. latin america not doing anything for you, china, but suddenly if you lose that pillar, got to slow that buyback. >> we'll see to what degree we get stimulus out of washington as a result of sandy. that will have to happen to some level. >> i think we've got to find out. my understanding is this is a discretionary item meaning they can write a check. they can say, you know what, we know that you've built on a flood plane but we're willing to look the other way.

west hampton build by the fed, totally reckless building and didn't matter. still got the check. >> bob pisani joins us here on the set. more on whether or not we'll get the bell tomorrow. >> meetings going on, executive leadership in the building. we're talking to people who are on the emergency committee to make sure the check list that we're talking about is going down the list. so far it's so good. that's what i'm hearing for a normal opening tomorrow. the important thing, they are looking for a normal 9:30-4:00 opening with the floor. that's the goal right now. now, what could throw a monkey wrench into this thing, a couple of things. number one, the connectivity issues. there are certain things outside the building they may or may not be able to control. for example, can they get all the data feeds in and out? this is in a sense a verizon issue, got to make sure, and that's one of the things, probably the single most important thing right now. they have to be able to test and make sure they can get in and out all the data feeds. they have been testing the backup generators. they functioned beautifully overnight. you saw the red, white and blue at the entrance there with the

columns working very well, fuel is there. they got to make sure that people can get there. hopefully, and there's some hopeful signs, that the brujs and tunnels will be open. again, they do not need the subways open. they have lists. they have about 200 people at the new york stock exchange for the floor to open, lists of how to carpool people in. any damage in to the facilities outside of the area that might be important, the building itself i am told is fine, but there may be some other outside buildings that may be important that they have to check out, and finally, in the event that there's an issue testing the backup plan. >> all right. with all that in mind we take to you new york city mayor mike bloomberg. >> hurricane sandy which has now officially left the new york city area, but i think it's fair to say the path of destruction that she left in her wake is going to be felt for quite some time. make no mistake about it, this was a devastating storm, maybe the worst that we have ever experienced. our first responders have been doing a heroic job protecting

our city and saving livings, and they are still fighting fires and conducting life-saving search and rescue missions, and we owe them an enormous debt of gratitude. the storm brought something like 23 serious fires to parts of staten island, brooklyn, queens, as well as city island and the bronx. a terrible fire on breezy point is now under control, but we believe we lost more than 80 houses. the search and recovery operations there are ongoing, and if any of you saw the pictures on television it looked like a forest fire out in the midwest. the winds were just devastating, blowing from one building to the next one, and those buildings were close together. we are hoping and praying that there was no loss of life in those fires, but even we can -- even if we can save every life we know that many people have lost their homes, and i want to know -- them to know that we have -- they have our full support in the days and weeks

ahead. the 76 shelters we opened will remain open today, and we will continue to keep shelters open until people displaced by the storm can safely return to their homes or find temporary housing. our first priority in this storm was and continues to be protecting lives, and that's why we ordered an evacuation of the areas most at risk and why we worked so hard to get people out. sadly, this storm claimed the lives of people throughout the region, including at least ten in our city, and tragically we expect that number to go up as information continues to come in. and i did want to extend my condolences to all the families who lost loved ones in the storm and ask all new yorkers to keep them in their thoughts and prayers. in addition to the lives we lost, the damage we suffered across the city is clearly extensive, and it will not be repaired overnight. the two biggest challenges facing our city going forward are getting our mass transit

system up and running and restoring power. this morning we have begun the work of clearing and reopening bridges and roadways, both of which will take some time, and the best ways new yorkers can help us get this done quickly is to stay off the roads. the work is well under way. east river bridges have already been reopened. the work of getting our mass transit grid and our power grid restored, however, is going to take more time and a lot of patience. mta's ceo joe lhoda has described this the worst disaster the agency has seen in the 108 years the subways have been running and con-ed has described the damage done to its power systems as unprecedented in scope. so clearly the challenges our city faces in the coming days are enormous. the mta and con-ed both have very strong leaders and extraordinarily dedicated workers. they are working extremely hard and will continue to work around the clock to get their systems fixed.

our administration will move heaven and earth to help them so we can get back up and running as quickly as humanly possible, but damages that they face really are enormous. here's the information that we have as of this moment. regarding con-ed and the mta. the most recent report has approximately three quarters of a million new yorkers without power. there are something like 326 buildings and 59 public housing developments without power. that's about 60,000 people and more than 26,000 apartments, and many of them are in zone "a." the steam system in manhattan south of 42nd street was shut down as a preventive step by con-ed. that affects heating, air conditioning, ventilating systems, including many of our hospitals, and because they shut it down preemptively, we're hopeful that the steam system can be restored fairly soon. i spoke to con-ed's ceo to offer

any assistance we can provide. i'll talk to him again later on but it's fair to say given the extent of the damage power may be out in lots of places for two or three days and maybe even a little bit longer than that. there is extensive flooding in all underriver subway tunnels, subway yards where rail trains are typically stored also flooded, and i think that shows the wisdom of joe lhoda in moving trains out of there to higher ground. i don't think there was any damage done to the rolling stock, but the tunnels all flooded, and that's going to be a big problem to get them back going. public transportation remains closed until further notice as a good way to think about it. there is no firm time line for the reactivation of bus or train service, but i'm sure the mta will do everything it can to have limited bus service, perhaps this afternoon and hopefully we'll be able to announce or joe lhoda will be able to announce restoration of

most bus service by tomorrow. we certainly think the roads by tomorrow will be cleared and free of water. all majo metro area are closed today. runways are flooded, and there are no flights leaving or arriving. how much damage was done to the equipment and lighting around them we don't know yet. i've signed an executive order that permits cab drivers to pick up multiple passengers, even if a passenger is already in the cab. it will also allow livery and black cars to pick up passengers anywhere in the city. these measures will be in place as long as mta service is out. if you use one of these cars, please make sure that the car has a tlc license plate. now, let me bring you up to date on our hospitals. we reported last night that nyu downtown and the manhattan veterans hospitals were closed. nyu langone also had to be evacuated overnight.

that is virtually complete. bellview hospital has lost power but at the moment is operating on backup power. coney island hospital has been evacuated. the department of health is sending people to each of the hospitals and chronic care facilities in zone "a." we've had significant challenges at many of our hospitals and health care facility. fortunately as of now, there has been no storm-related fatalities at any of them. there are more than 6,100 people in our emergency shelters, and i'm happy to say there are more than 2,200 city staff working in those shelters right now. a number of our shelters lost power last night, but we were able to give backup generation to those that didn't have them. received service requests since the storm began, for damaged or falling trees. majority of those are in queens. let me just urge everybody, 311 for downed trees. >> mayor mike bloomberg going

through the storm that he calls devastating, maybe the worst ever experienced by the city of new york. three-quarters of a million people without apartment, 26,000 apartments in the city alone, extensive flooding in the underwater subway tunnels and probably the headline for those who live in the city, as we heard from con-ed not too long ago on this program, probably two or three days until restoration of the electricity, and as con-ed said maybe upwards of a week in some areas of westchester county and new york. >> yeah. i wish we had a mayor for the suburbs all together, because i think what you're really trying to figure out is piecing it block by block by block and you know the downed trees and power lines are much more difficult to deal with out there. con-ed, very smart outfit. you're in a compressed area. but i think that still what i'm getting is that tomorrow could be business as usual for a lot of different placed which is very surprising. >> mike: yeah.

if you don't have to take a subway under a river, right, that's not actually a bad theory and harrowing to hear him talk about 80 homes being lost to fire, describes it as almost a forest fire-like environment given the winds last night. so we'll talk more about that, and if he brings any more headlines we'll get them straight to you. >> you know, one thing, i think 9/11, there's no -- there's no good news about 9/11 obviously when it happened, but it seems to have brought these first responders together in a way, the coordination bond seems amazing to me, amazing. >> some of the early calls, getting the subway trains off the tracks, as the mayor said, in retrospect looks pretty smart. >> what a plan. >> let's get to lower manhattan, experiencing some record flooding yesterday. our scott cohn is live in battery park city. scott, what's the scene this morning? >> reporter: yeah, and i will second that, carl, what jim just said about how this city was prepared for it, and we talked last night how about in a lot of ways the city seemed fragile,

but, you know, the evacuation zones that went into place and irene was the first time that they started to use them and then now sandy, and -- and the flooding actually pretty much went along the lines of that zone "a" that was evacuated. they very much were ready for it to the extent that you can be ready for such a thing, and we saw those first responders go to work as soon as they possibly could, as the floodwaters crested in lower manhattan. i can tell you that here in battery park one sign that things are coming back to normal to some extent is there's a fairly steady flow of tourists here. they probably shouldn't be out but, you know, people have been cooped up for a little while and want to see what's going on and get a look at the still angry waters of new york harbor so they are doing just that. one of the things that we've been very interested in obviously from a cnbc standpoint and just in general is the new york mercantile exchange, which is a mile or so from here along the hudson river, and we've seen water coming over from some of

the sea walls there at high tide yesterday morning. we sent a crew over there to take a look at it. it seems like it's okay, and we can show you some of the damage around the area, just sort of general sort of storefront damage, windows out. there's the aftermath of the flooding, but a lot of the worst damage is underground. the bridges, as you've heard, only starting to get back open. the bridges over the east river of brooklyn are coming back, still, the tunnels are closed down. the commuter rail system out to westchester and long island still is down, and so as we try and get back to work, that's still the issue that we're facing. >> scott, thank you so much for that. by the way, the mayor's office of emergency management saying that new york city schools will be closed again tomorrow which will throw a wrench into that business as usual. >> yes. to listen to him, so calm. wow, the bridges, everything will be kind of working but then as you get individual components of the city, they are not holding up. >> city operates, stands on

multiple pillars, and schools will not be one of them. hoboken, new jersey, seeing serious flooding as a result of sandy. we'll talk to the owner of a local ace hardware store to see how he and the community are being affected. we're back after a short break. oh...there you go. wooohooo....hahaahahaha! i'm gonna stand up to her! no you're not. i know. you know ronny folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico sure are happy. how happy are they jimmy? happier than a witch in a broom factory. get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more.

joining us on the phone is the ceo of power company pooej, ralph izzo. >> you actually have ralph larose, the chief operating

officer here. >> thanks for the clarification. >> spoke to con-ed, three times the number of power from irene. are those numbers similar in your neighborhood? >> still in the final assessment. right now we think we're about 1.3 million customers out of power and irene we had about 800,0 800,000. >> how is restoration going? >> right now we're in assessment mode, long and tedious process that we need to go through. i say we have 60% of customers without power due to the outside plant or overhead lines that were damaged but a large portion of customers without power have been impacted due to severe flooding that took place during the storm surge that came up the newark bay. >> ralph, jim cramer here and a user of your company. >> thank you, jim. >> now, a lot of people -- a lot of people i talk to always say that guy, how did that guy get it, how did they fix that guy before my guy? how do you prioritize, and maybe you tell people that there aren't some who are at the top

of the queue versus others. >> a pretty straightforward plan. start out with hospitals. so if you're fortunate enough to be on a circuit feeding a hospital you'll get your power back, maybe overlook is an example, but there's other areas that what we'll do is we'll go to schools and municipal facilities first. this year we have a little added burden which is we'll have to focus on some of the polling locations as we get closer to next tuesday. >> yes, i think i think that does explain i'm on a better part of the grid. saw a lot of trucks coming from interstate 80 and all sorts of different power companies all over the country, what are those people allow and not allowed to do to help you? >> they are allowed to do whatever they are trained to do so we try to get our:= linemen here in pooej, actually handle 13,000 volts live so we try to contract with folks that have that same type of skill set. where we can't work that, we'll

take them out of service and make the repairs and put them back in service. >> ralph, 1.3 million, how does that compare to irene, and when you say 60% are due to large plants falling as opposed to surge, how has that ratio been in past storms? >> mostly been from overhead which is why we brought in the 950 folks that we saw coming in on route 80 and 78 into the area, but for this storm it's completely different with the storm surge that we saw, unprecedent what had we've seen. heard governor christie talk about the rail lines and the trains being lifted in place on the new jersey turnpike. our switch parts were right in the same path. >> in hurricane irene there was an odd combination of snow and lightning and i saw transformers pop all over town. has this been one of those where the transformers themselves have not been part, not been explodeing? >> well, i think we were somewhat fortunate in the fact that we lost so many of our supply lines. the transformers you see on the

poles were not energized when the trees came down on them so you didn't see the same type of activity. that doesn't mean that the damage isn't there, and that's what we're current outly out there assessing. >> i assume, people talk about the foliage of the trees in advance of the storm and the degree to which those leaves would catch the wind and come down. do you think they have come down easier this time as a result? >> you know, we had the rain especially in the southern part of the state. you combine that with the wind and the leaves still being on the trees, and we certainly had a recipe for disaster. >> ralph, thanks so much for your time. appreciate you taking a couple minutes to bring some clarity to that part of the story, the president and coo of pg & e.

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a shot of new york harbor there. hurricane sandy flooding parts of the northeast. hoboken, new jersey one of those worst hit. ernie, welcome, good to have you. >> thanks for having me. >> chatting during the commercial break whether or not you were here and here was a good sign. hoboken has been a special case this time. >> it is a special case. plenty of streets where the water is three and four feet deep. a lot of power lines down so it's very dangerous, and i hope people stay at home if they can and stay safe. >> early with the driving curfew about this time yesterday, and at this point, even if you wanted to reopen, could you not, right? >> could i not. the curfew is until 6:00 p.m. originally it was to 1:00, so i don't think we'll be able to open today. we're going to try to at least get there and assess the damage and hope that everybody is safe. >> this was the storm, ernie, that we all knew was coming, so what was it like at your store before the storm, and what were

they grabing? >> you have different kinds of people and people that -- that prepare for the storm, and they have a list of things and come in ready, and then you have the people that come in at the last moment hoping that we still have stuff, and we did have stuff. we had a lot of flashlights and batteries and, you know, generators and everything else so we have been stocked and we continue to be stocked thanks to ace hardware. they have really prepared for this storm and they have moved, you know r, moved merchandise t the different warehouses. >> ernie, you're a microcosm for small business in this situation. did you think you did enough business beforehand that you actually can tide over your cash flow over the next few days and that the month will end up being a good one? >> cash flow is always the tricky part because the busier you are, the more you have to buy your merchandise and the quicker your cash goes out and then, of course, you get paid by credit cards later, so the cash

flow always goes down so when you're busier you get the cash flow crunch, and as a small business owner i'm well aware of that cycle. >> but in general do these kinds of events make a quarter, make a month, break a quarter, break a month? >> yeah. it's -- it's been record-breaking for us. we've had great business, and we just want to be there for our customers, and we want to supply them with the merchandise that they need for cleanup. we want them to have shop vacs and cleanup supplies and fantastic and bleach and all that stuff. >> let's go over the generator issue. trying to figure out do we buy the generator or not. could be one time, may not be one. how do you stock that knowing suddenly this once in every 100-year storms seems to be once every year? >> that's the ongoing problem. very difficult to assess how much you want to have in the store. we had 3,000 flashlights just because of irene last year and then the freak snow storm we had

in okay. you want to be as prepared as you can, but obviously i can't have that many generators. we're a small store in hoboken and what we did is rented a truck, got a driver and did two trips up to saratoga springs, wilton, new york, where the ace warehouse is and they were fully stocked for us and we were able to bring down 100 generators for the people in hoboken to have. >> real life, carl, sitting here talking about each candidate goes the small businessman, i mean, listen the troubles that you have. you've got cash flow. you've got to be able to sure you have the merchandise but not too much merchandise but then you're going to have a crunch. >> delicate dance. >> inventory, everything we constantly wage battle with. that's what we do. >> thanks for coming in. >> thank you. >> going to take you live to new york governor andrew cuomo. >> 930,000 without power. that's roughly 90% of the people on long island, believe it or not.

rockland, utility 185,000 and con-ed, 712,000. what's going to make this more complicated is the states basically have a reciprocity agreement with other states when they have a crisis they send us their utility workers and vice versa. so many times were affected in this crisis that we're seeking utility workers from as far away as texas and california. we have -- hopefully we have about 4,000 utility workers who will be coming into the state to help, but this is going to be a serious problem. the national guard is going to continue to be deployed, removing tree limbs, doing that kind of work to release the lines. on the restoration of power, we're going to ask the public service commission to oversee these utility companies in restoring the power, and making sure it's being done well and as quickly as possible. specifically the long island

power authority, lipa, has had a very poor track record in just this area of restoring power, and we're going to ask the chairman of the psc to specifically monitor lipa to make sure the power is coming on. in terms of buses, there will be a limited resumption of service started today at 5:00 p.m. limited redumgs is basically the sunday schedule and hopefully tomorrow there will be full service on the buses. a little ray of light is the no fares will be charged on the buses today or tomorrow as new yorkers are struggling to get their lives back in gear. the subways, when we talk about subway restoration, joe lhoda is here and he'll talk more about this, i think rather than talking about restoration of the

system, it's going to be more a conversation of a restoration of the parts of the system first. someone said to me last night who had years of experience in the subway system that he had never seen damage like this before. i think the decision to move the -- stop the service and move the trains and move the buses to safer ground was -- was truly the prudent one, but even having done that, the damage to the tracks, tunnels that are underwater is unlike this city has seen in decades, if ever. so that is a -- that is a yoman's undertaking. joe lhoda and his entire team did extraordinary work all through this, in the preparation and judgment and decisions that were made, were all 100% correct. his team was on it last night. i can tell you firsthand, so they have done a great job, and

i think they are going to do the best job they can to get the system up and running as soon as possible. give you an idea of the obstacles. metro north has a 40-foot boat that is across the tracks so it's those little things that can sometimes cause a problem. all bridges will be reopening at noon today except the rockaway bridges, which cannot be reopened. the brooklyn battery tunnel and the holland tunnel will remain closed due to flooding. jfk, we believe, the jfk airport we believe will be reopened tomorrow. more information on that shortly. we do not anticipate laguardia airport reopening tomorrow due to extensive damage. i've spoken to president obama twice yesterday. he is being extraordinarily cooperative. i spoke with secretary tim

geithner yesterday about accelerating the return of wall street, and we are cautiously optimistic that wall street will come back online tomorrow. the president asked what was our major problem. i told him the major problem was the flooding of the tunnels and the ground zero site, basements in many buildings in downtown manhattan. the army corps of engineers is sending us their best national team. they call it the national unwatering team. i didn't know there was such a name for a team, bthe national unwatering s.w.a.t. team is on its way to new york and we need them very badly. fema has also set up a hotline for individuals who might need assistance. the fema hotline is 1-800-621-6682. the personal observation, i've been involved in disaster

mitigation all across the country when i worked in the federal government, and i've seen all types of disasters. i was in the hurricane andrew in florida, homestead, florida. i was in the red river floods, the midwest floods which saw entire cities wiped away. the earthquakes in california. i have to tell you what i saw last night in downtown manhattan, what went on in the south shore of long island, were some of the worst conditions that i had seen. the hudson river downtown manhattan was literally pouring in to the ground zero site with such a force that we were worried about the structure of the pit itself. joe lhoda and i just happened to run into each other in downtown manhattan, and when i tell you the hudson river was pouring

into the brooklyn battery tunnel like a river at high velocity so it was a frightening site, and while the hudson river was coming over from the west, the east river was coming over from the east, and -- and the amount of water and the acceleration and the rising of the river was really -- was really frightening. and the response of the responders i tell you was as courageous as anything i've seen because it was frightening, it was truly frightening, and when every instinct in your body is telling you to take to you a place of safety and run the other way. >> governor cuomo, there talking. if you missed part of his earlier statement from a couple of interesting things. 90% of long island without power, and they are establishing the public service commission will oversee restoration of service there. that's a very big deal. limited bus service as of

tonight. hopefully full service tonight. they expect no fares will be charged, jim, over the next couple of days. bridges open at noon today except for one near the rockaways, holland and brooklyn battery tunnel will remain closed due to flooding and then this tweet that the governor put up earlier, the whitehall subway station. what an amazing picture from the governor's personal twitter account, flooded as of 10:22 a.m. this morning. gives you an idea of just what the picture is like in lower manhattan. that said he said he is cautiously optimistic that wall street comes online and getting help from the fed in what is known as the national unwatering s.w.a.t. team. >> don't you love that. took a shot at the long island power, wow. that was like a rout house from nowhere. i didn't know it could happen with the subways. one of the things i've found when i first moved to new york is those things tend to, rain, nor snow and then sleet, bingo, wow, i didn't know.

>> very serious. a lot of good information there. probably the headline from the governor is the bridge is opening at noon today, though the mayor continues to insist three or four days, his best guess as to subway service being restored across the five boroughs. a lot more on the aftermath of sandy. the governor of new jersey, chris christie, actually the former governor, christine todd whitman, will join us after the break. [ engine revving ] ♪ [ male announcer ] every car we build

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president obama signing disaster declarations overnight for the state of new york and new jersey. joining us on the cnbc "newsline," former new jersey governor christine todd whitman. governor, good to have you with us. good morning. >> good morning. how are you surviving? >> hacking in there. we have power which is more than a lot of people can say. ahead of this storm people expected given the experience of irene that officials were overselling it. that clearly was not the case. >> certainly was not the case. it's been an amazing storm, and the aftermath is going to take a long time to clean up which is going to be a real problem. >> what's happening right now that you find most important? >> well, frankly, it's the way -- it's the preparation. it was the pre-storm activity that took place that's most impressed me from both the government side on both sides of the river and from the utilities. i mean, people learned a lesson

from irene, and they really seem to have put things together in the best way possible. having said that, the amount of damage nobody is going to be satisfied because this is going to take a while to clean up. you know, when people have lost everything or moved out of their homes they want it back. they want it back now, and no matter how much you do, it's -- people are going to be unhappy, and you can understand that. >> governor whitman, jim cramer here, good to talk to you. >> good to talk to you. >> confused about what is our real policy in this country. we know that there are areas along the beach that are going to get flooded. we know that these are theoretically reckless places to build but we keep building on them and the federal government has to bail out people. is this fair? is this right? >> that's a big question that no one wants to have to address, and it's one we're going to have to, especially, i don't care if you think -- why you think it's happening, but clearly when we see 200-year storms within 14 months of one another we know things are changing, and we've got to start to address, that

and part that have is going to be where we build and how we build. we're just going to have to be smarter about it, and there are going to be some places, communities that have been there forever, that are homes to people that are very important to them and they have lived their whole lives there. i know how hard this is going to be, but at some point we have to bite the bullet and say there are just some places where we can't keep rebuilding because everybody, all taxpayers, have to help get them out from under when you have this kind of flooding. >> governor, do you think the infrastructure of the state of jersey is holding up well or something you have to look back and say, you know what, the state of the state is not ready for this kind of event? >> well, frankly i don't think anybody is ready for this kind of event, but from all that i have seen, the state actually has been doing a very good job. i'll let you know later when we get our power back because there's a big tree down at the end of our drive. >> are you in huntering count? >> yeah.

it's beautiful there. >> i don't know -- i'll let you know when they get that back on. >> governor, governor cuomo just said that anyone who says there hasn't been a dramatic change in weather patterns is in denial. we asked the head of the hartford earlier this morning if they are trying to model any different than they used to. they said we might in a cycle, a permanent shift, we don't know. it's a very big planet and we live in a tiny corner of it. how is this going to alter the debate? >> again, i think it's going to be as people look around them and say this stuff is happening far too frequently, outside of any of the patterns, that we have every see. again, when you think humans cause it or not, can you certainly say that human activity is exacerbating a national trend because we know that the earth has been changing since it was formed, and if there's anything that we can do to slow it down to better prepare, i mean, this has national security implications for us, too, the way things are changing. we need to take it seriously, and it was actually ronald reagan who made it a part of the

national security council's regular reviews, climate change, as an issue of national security. >> governor, appreciate your time. good luck getting power back. >> well, we've got a generator. >> okay. >> when you get full power back, keep it on cnbc, that's all i have to say. >> absolutely. okay. >> thanks so much. the tide may be receding in new york harbor, but lower manhattan is still dealing with the aftermath of a severe storm surge. jim cantore joins us live from battery park city. good morning, jim. >> how you guys doing? >> good. walk us through -- don't let that plastic bag hit you. walk us through the effect of the surge as you can see it now and 14 feet, try to give people just a sense what have that means. >> reporter: well, last night, you know, basically the surge is the rise in the water associated with the storm. that's it. okay. it happens because of the wind and the low pressure. those are the two key ingredients, and we knew we were going to get a very, very high surge last night, and we actually happened to set a record here at the battery.

it's never been this high here and at sandy hook and ocean street as well. excuse me, guys. can you see where the debris came up and the water came over the battery sea wall. you can see where the debris line got. this is not surprising to us, especially knowing what we know about storm surge. i was here during irene. did not get that high at all. pretty much stayed here hon the lower part of grass. this time it's obviously gone much further and hence the records, hence the subway is flooded. the streets of new york. i mean, it was like everywhere you turned last night, guys, it was pretty much like a movie set because there were cars bobbing around like little rubber duckies out there. not something we want to see in new york city and then to see the power outage, basically from 39th on southward. that's where we've seen the loss of power and look at size of those trees that came down. as the tide was coming in, we also saw the wind shift so we were blocked a good portion of the wind from yesterday because the winds were coming across the big buildings from here. once the wind shifted up the

huds hudson, we got absolutely hammered and it was like the fourth of july pretty much from brooklyn, out to staten island and out to jersey city, like someone was putting on a fourth of july fireworks display. >> pop, pop, pop, that video from last night unbelievable. >> jim cantore joining us from lower manhattan today. as you know, markets remain closed for the second day in a row. the first time since 1888 the markets have been closed for more than two days. rick selly is watching what there is to watch from the cme in chicago? good morning, carl. we have actual people trading in the interest rate futures and options. we have electronic trade. we have no cash trade, no equity trades, future, options or cash, as you well know. as i look at the board, i see that the 30-year bond is down about, well, it looks like a couple of 30 seconds, the

ten-year now is down and the charts aren't updating, but i can tell you this. we're a little lower than price than yesterday and a little higher in price than on friday. one area that's really getting hit hard is the dollar. as i look at the dollar index, and can you look at a two-day chart and then a two-week chart, the dollar is at a one-week low. looking at the futures, foreign exchange will be the least american market impacted. i see this from the peso, the yen, the british pound and euro are all up against the dollar today. is that because of the storm. well, you're going to have to make that decision on your own. in terms of looking at the fixed income through the prism of what's going on overseas, you can look at a two-day chart of boone's and their yield is under 150, haven't been above 150 in a week. it's probably because we have auctions tomorrow in europe, french and boone's. back to you. >> we'll be interested to see if

there's a normal day and we wake up starting about european bond auctions once again. >> i'd like to go back to normal soon. >> i know. atlantic city, one of the hardest hit areas experiencing serious flooding and storm damage from sandy. when we come back we'll talk to the ceo of landry's restaurant, owns the golden nugget and rain forest cafe there. he'll update us on the effect on those businesses after the break. gh seo all by cob. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle... and go. you can even take a full-size or above, and still pay the mid-size price. i'm going b-i-g. [ male announcer ] good choice business pro. good choice. go national. go like a pro.

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assessing the damage that hurricane sandy left behind. from the insurance industry to the retail sector, how many people are still in the dark and when they think they can get power restored and the rebuilding effort from weyerhaeuser, all of that at the top of the hour. >> see you then. thanks alloyd. atlantic city's boardwalk breaking off in large sections. 85% of the city was submerged in water according to officials. absolutely incredible. atlantic city's casinos and restaurants, will they be able to rebuild in time to bring back tourists? the ceo of landry's restaurants which includes the golden nugget hotel and casino and rain forest cafe. how are you doing? >> we lucked out pretty good in atlantic city. besides the boardwalk getting extremely damaged. most of the hotel, casinos, restaurants everybody, you know, got through it pretty good. >> we should point out this is

not your first rodeo. you've seen these kinds of things before, but, i mean, the effect on the city the size of atlantic city, i just wonder if you've seen anything like that. >> it's really amazing that first off in 15 months, you know, being from texas and fighting storms with all of our businesses for so many years to have to fight it in the first months is pretty interesting. what's amazing though, as strong as the storm was, that all the casinos, you know, went through it pretty good. just about everybody could open today if they would let us, and that's what we're hoping to see. >> a question if they would let us. governor christie has just been hammering, hammering the mayor of atlantic city. is there internecine strife, or is there something to it? >> you know, governor christie likes to hammer, and i guess "today" he chose the mayor of atlantic city. but it was not a category 3 storm, and you didn't have 15

around 20-foot tidal surge. you know, like i said we're right there on the marina and we came out pretty good. our biggest obstacle was a boat wasn't tied up right and did damage to our marina and pier, but besides the damage to the boardwalk, a lot of buildings down there and people came out pretty good. >> tilman, i want to know whether you think vegas is coming back. i've got a feeling you are seeing better numbers there. >> vegas is coming back. you get little hiccups now but the consumer is out there spending money, no doubt. we had positive sales now for over three years at 500 restaurants of ours in all different categories because we have so many different concepts, and the consumer is spending money. is it totally back like it was a few years ago but the travelers are traveling and our hotels are busy, and vegas is coming back. it's not there yet, but you've got to also remember we're still trying to eat the supply up of all the rooms that were built during the boom, and if you

didn't have all the rooms that were built during the boom of a few years ago, vegas probably would be back. >> finally, tilman, what does this mean, every time there's a storm we get the hotels and restaurants trying to spread the word that they are open for business once again, but do you sense anything different in terms of how this will affect consumers, just getting a piece of their mine share and getting them back in the mood to go to something like a dinner or a casino. >> what happens is what people really don't realize a lot, it's not just the day of the storm. people stop going to these places a few days before and it will take -- if there's going to be a lot of inland flooding and damage, it will be weeks before everything is back to normal for everybody. you know, we just all thank god that we didn't have the damage that we did, but it does affect the consumer for a while. they end up spending money on things they did not think they would spend money for. everybody has to have to protect their homes and businesses so there's definitely an overhang for a little while.

>> good luck getting reopened and, of course, it's a good thing that the damage wasn't any worse than it was. thanks so much. >> thank you, gentlemen, have a good day. >> you're looking at some live pictures from montauk, meantime, this is the easternmost exposed edge of income's long island. a coastal flood warning remains in effect until 3:30 this afternoon. we'll get the assessment of the damage there when we come back. and the world's only tridion safety cell which can withstand over three and a half tons. small in size. big on safety.

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coastal areas of the northeast getting hit hard by sandy. our brian schactman is live in montauk with the latest on the situation there. brian, just talking about the overwhelming percentage of long island that's been without power today. >> yeah, it is unbelievable, and as you can see it's a total mess where i am now. have to also be very careful because there are nails absol e absolutely everywhere. power is the issue everywhere where on long island. we're on the eastern part of long island it gets worse as you head closer and closer to norbert. just a few minutes ago, governor cuomo put it all in perspective >> the restoring power is going to be one of the major challenges for us. you have about 2 million families without power. westchester was hit very hard, but long island really took the

brunt of the burden. >> the infrastructure as far out as here is pretty outdated, and when it comes to long island power authority, they have a lot of work to do because when you go off the main roads, that's where all the damage is from the winds. we do not know yet how quickly they will get it together, carl, but the bottom line is we were very lucky here. we had generator power for backup and only lost power in certain spots, and there are a lot of people out there that are going to have to deal with some issues for a long, long time. it is reminiscent of that snow event we had a year ago when people lost power, not here, but in other parts of the northeast region. >> some compelling pictures there, brian. thanks a lot. brian schactman in montauk for us today. as we close out the hour, as we get the opening bell, tomorrow night will be assembling some kind of game plan. >> i've got to tell you a lot of companies reported in the last 48 hours. i'll assess them out and put them in the prism to make some money. >> tomorrow is a net bearish day, fair to